


Thank You For Shopping At Magnus

by Kawaii



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grocery Store, Alternate Universe - Retail, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, F/M, Jon is so very tired, M/M, Not beta read because how can you look someone in the eyes and ask them to concrit this, Recreational Drug Use, Stoner Elias Bouchard, Vape God Peter Lukas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24365521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kawaii/pseuds/Kawaii
Summary: A re-imagination of how Jon's life might have gone had he suffered from the same retail fate as countless other humanities majors, but ended up facing similar to canon horrors anyways
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Tim Stoker, We have reached none of these ships yet but I promise we will eventually
Comments: 27
Kudos: 117





	1. Orientation

**Author's Note:**

> [hits my bong] My therapist can only listen to me bitch about work for so long, so now Jon gets to hold my trauma. This is going to be a fun little side project where I try to rewrite many TMA episodes as possible to fit Jon's shitty new management position while also throwing in a "healthy" dose of retail horror. I make no promises for every single episode, but I will be trying my absolute hardest to cram as much as I can in here
> 
> As a warning, I am not British and know next to nothing about British grocery stores, but I've been in hell for years now and some of the things grocery store employees see are close enough to real life statements anyways. I'll also probably come back to this in the morning for a sober clean up of my atrocious grammar, so be forewarned for that!

As Jon had quickly learned, uni is far from cheap. He’d told himself he would only work at a grocery store through uni and then quit the second he graduated and got a real job, but the fact was that library sciences is an incredibly niche field without many positions, and those that did open up were usually only because someone had passed away. So, whether it was because the right people had yet to die or because of his own bad luck, Jon found himself still working for a grocery store chain called Magnus. 

When he had first graduated from his Master’s program after about three years of being with Magnus, the place had filled him with rage. Sure, it allowed him to scrape by during his studies, but he’d always told himself that he would get a proper job and close the retail chapter of his life. Then the realization that life wasn’t always that easy hit him like a freight train. Everyday after work he would come home, strip off the stupid uniform they made him wear, and then hold his couch pillow over his face and scream until it felt like he’d never be able to again. Then he’d shower, microwave a frozen dinner at random, and spend the rest of his evening reading and frantically sending out his resume. Rinse and repeat.

But eventually, his neighbors started to complain about the incessant screaming, and the rejection letters kept piling up, and Jon tried to make his peace with the fact that the rest of his life would likely be spent as a grocery store service desk employee where he mostly just gave refunds to entitled women with terrible hair and aided and abetted countless gambling addictions. He had lived a quiet, unremarkable life for as long as he could remember, and it made sense that it would continue on like that.

That was, until he heard whispers about a service desk scandal at one of their locations. The Institute, as it was nicknamed, was supposedly the oldest of the stores in the Magnus chain, and was considered the flagship store as a result. And no one quite knew what happened, but their service desk manager, Gertrude Robinson, and a few of her employees had been fired. Anyone that had avoided being fired was apparently in the process of being transferred out to other departments, which meant that it was a completely clean slate. It was just rumors that didn’t involve him though, so he didn’t try to dig too much.

Jon was absentmindedly cutting up a strip of bright orange PAID stickers during a slow Thursday morning and watching each one fall onto the counter like confetti, and mostly just wishing that he was allowed to go home when it was this dead. That was when his manager, a woman just a few years older than him named Rosie, told him offhandedly that she’d put his name in the running to head the Institute’s new service desk team. Jon nearly cut off his finger before he had the sense to put the scissors down.

“Haha, good one Rosie. Let me guess, you’ve also given me a ten pound raise?” He asked drily.

“Mmmmno, but I think if you got the position it’s somewhere around there. Anyways, your interview is on Tuesday, and do _not_ make me look foolish for suggesting you, Jonathan Sims.”

Jon kept his eyes focused on the stickers and the stickers alone. She really was serious, wasn’t she? He wasn’t even sure why she’d done it, considering his unwillingness to give customers a friendly smile or make inane small talk. Then again, he’d heard the customer base at the Institute was interesting, so maybe she thought his unfriendly demeanor would be a plus

“You shouldn’t have done that, you didn’t even ask m-”

“You deserve to do something better with your life than this, and I know you already know how to manage a damn desk on your own. Maybe this will teach you to stop moping about how you’ll never be a stodgy old librarian and find a new path!”

He narrowed his eyes at her passive-aggressive commentary on his life’s path thus far, and swept the stickers into his hand. He tugged the drawer open and poured them into their container, then slammed the drawer shut on the aggressive side of permissible drawer slamming levels.

“I’m going on break,” He stated, and left the scissors where they were on the counter as a gift for when Rosie finally spotted them.

It had been a long time since Jon had learned his days of the week in primary school, but he was pretty sure that there were supposed to be a handful of days in between Thursday and Tuesday. He would have never known it based on the blink of an eye that it took for him to be standing in front of the garment rack he called a closet, wishing he had gotten some advice on good interview clothes before now. 

Rosie had in theory been kind enough to give him the day off, but in practice it meant that he woke up at 8 A.M. and would spend the next 4 hours worrying about what to wear and how to tame his hair, and then would most likely arrive 45 minutes early to his interview anyways. As it was though, he stared intently at his clothes. He rarely went out anymore outside of work, so he’d sold a lot of his clothes from uni for a couple of bucks here and there. It was great when he could afford a slightly better quality frozen pizza that week, but the regret bubbled out of him now that he was looking at his incredibly slim pickings.

After about an hour, Jon had convinced himself that he probably wasn’t going to get the position anyways, so all that mattered was dressing decently enough that Rosie wouldn’t chew him out at work tomorrow. He eventually settled on a neat button down and bow tie with a thick cardigan tossed over the top, and then set about his hair.

He stared at himself in the mirror, and briefly contemplated just calling and saying he was no longer interested in the position at all. He must have tossed and turned even more than usual last night, because his hair was completely matted on the one side of his head. He gingerly touched the thick clumps, feeling the dry strands where they had fused into one giant knot. He reached for the trusty wooden brush he’d had for the past 15 years, quickly ran it under the tap, and then cautiously started to run it through his hair. At first he could barely get a few centimeters from the ends, but after a lot of tugging (and countless loose hairs falling to the ground), it appeared to be more or less untangled. With yet another obstacle out of his way, Jon paused for a moment to examine himself in the mirror. If he was going for the librarian aesthetic he tended to sport in his free time, he might as well complete it with a bun, and get his too-long hair out of his face in the process.

His phone told him he had an hour and a half left until his interview, so Jon begrudgingly collected his keys, wallet, and “portfolio” (at Rosie’s insistence), and dragged himself towards the tube. The journey itself was thankfully unremarkable, and he soon enough found himself standing outside of the Institute.

The outside of it appeared to be built with brick that was now flaking apart, and it did definitely look older than his own Magnus location. He had expected maybe a couple of years older, but this building looked… Downright ancient. He didn’t think too hard about it though, his head entirely consumed with every possible way this interview could go bad.

When he finally had half an hour left until his interview, he walked inside and located the first managerial looking person he found, who was an older man with salt and pepper hair and intensely pale blue eyes. He had seemed kind at first glance, but Jon felt a weird shock go through him as they made eye contact. Regardless of any vibe checks though, it would still probably be best to introduce himself.

“Hello there, I’m Jonathan Sims. I believe I’m interviewing with your store manager, Elias, at 1 o’clock?”

The man beamed at him, and released what could only be described as a hearty chuckle. 

“I would be Elias. Thank you for being available to interview on such short notice Mr. Sims, and for your punctuality. I am available now, or would you prefer to wait until our scheduled time?”

“Ah, now’s fine.”

At this, Elias immediately started walking towards the perishables side of the store. Jon, keen to not completely fuck up the first opportunity for “professional advancement” he’d gotten in years, quickly scrambled to catch up to him. He was still nervously clutching the portfolio that Rosie had insisted he bring, but figured he could give it to Elias later on.

“I figured we could start the interview during a walking tour of the store and then finish up in my office. As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, this store is set up rather differently from most of our other locations. This right here is our bakery, where we’re one of the few stores to have a full-service patisserie.”

As he gestured to the bakery, a tall person with equally impossibly long limbs and hair waved enthusiastically to Elias, and grinned larger than Jon would have thought humanly possible. Elias briefly waved to the individual, then turned to Jon.

“Mr. Sims, how many quids tall is The Shard?”

Jon had been preparing himself to answer questions about his schooling, his qualifications, his experience, and all of the classic interview topics. He had not, however, run the math on the dimensions of buildings in London or on coins. 

“I suppose it would depend whether they were being stacked on their edges or on their faces.”

Elias seemed delighted by this answer, and quickly took a detour to show Jon the tunnel that meat and seafood could use to reach the back loading dock. They walked past what appeared to be a large pile of bones, and Jon quickly averted his eyes. He hadn’t eaten meat in several years, and the sigh of that much carnage made him more than a little queasy. It didn’t seem to faze Elias though, so he kept on following along.

“Now tell me, how would you best file things in folders using an alphabetical system?”

Jon was only marginally more prepared for this question, and only hesitated a few seconds before answering.

“I would use a folder for each letter, and then put the folders in alphabetical order?”

This answer also seemed to please Elias, and then they had walked into the backroom. It certainly looked much more haphazard than Jon was used to at his location, but it made sense that each store had their own quirks. Elias then asked a few more rote questions about his education and the roles he filled at the service desk he was currently at as they circled back up to the front of the store through the aisles of non-perishables. The questions were easy and the aisles really all looked about the same as any other grocery store’s, and soon enough they were standing in front of what was presumably the service desk. Presumably, because whereas he was used to cheap scuffed up wood and a linoleum countertop, this had sleek dark wood and what appeared to actually be an actual crushed quartz counter. 

When Jon looked back at Elias, the man seemed like he was watching his reaction. Observing it, even. But as soon as he’d noticed it, Elias was walking towards a staircase in the corner. So yet again, Jon felt himself rushing to catch up with Elias. The climb up the stairs consisted of more easy conversation about Jon’s store over on King Street. 

They walked past what must have been the break room, which only had one or two people sitting quietly and eating lunch, and then they were at a door with a placard reading “Elias Bouchard,” and then a second line reading “Store Manager.” Elias inserted a key and unlocked the door, and the office, strangely enough, smelled like patchouli.

Jon hadn’t smelled the scent since his early days in uni, when he’d lived in college accomodations and lived near a handful of folks that liked to smoke things a bit stronger than his own occasional cigarette. But it was surely just a coincidence, this was the store manager at a relatively prestigious store (prestigious for a grocery store, anyways). He probably just enjoyed the scent.

He took a seat in front of Elias’ desk when motioned to, and then watched as Elias neatly placed himself at his desk. Without even the slightest change in tone from their earlier light-hearted topic, Elias pivoted the interview.

“Mr. Sims, why should I hire you while knowing fully well that you still hope to get a job that will better utilize your library sciences degree?”

Jon’s heart immediately decided to relocate itself to his throat, where it painfully beat against the walls at a speed that couldn’t possibly be healthy. His portfolio, resume included, was still in the manila folder he’d been carrying throughout the tour. There was no way Elias could have possibly known about that, and Rosie (probably) wouldn’t have told him if she was so eager to kick him out of the nest. He could worry about the source later though, because for the time being he had to swallow his heart back down and answer.

“I suppose that’d be up to your discretion. But for what it’s worth, I believe that I’m experienced enough to be able to pick up a department in limbo and keep it afloat, and that my education leaves me better equipped than most to organize the amount of information that the store keeps,” he responded.

It felt like a halfway decent answer considering how incriminating the question was, and Elias seemed to agree. He held out his hand towards where Jon had set his portfolio in his lap. Hoping to come out of this in relatively good graces, Jon quickly handed it over in hopes that it would further illustrate his competence. Instead, Elias laughed and gleefully deposited it in his wastebasket. Jon was convinced that this might have been a terrible prank on Rosie’s part after all and started to get up, before his escape was interrupted.

“Sit, sit. We have more to discuss. Now before I continue, do you have any questions?”  
Jon shook his head. It was pretty obvious that this had been a mistake, and he’d rather finish this all up quickly so he could spend the rest of his day moping.

“Excellent! You’ll be in for quite a bit of work, seeing as you’ll have no longtime employees and quite a bit of organizing to do in the wake of how your predecessor left everything. However, I have full confidence in your capabilities. We have had a few employees on loan from other stores to fill in the gaps, and two of them will be transferring here permanently, a Tim Stoker and a Sasha James, I believe. We intend to continue hiring, but for the time being you may find yourself short-staffed. Now, this sheet here states that you accept your position and will be starting next week, and this one here states that you’ll be paying in for private health insurance. Just sign here and here,” Elias explained as he produced two forms that were somehow already completely filled in with his personal information.

He felt a bit dizzy between the shellshock of Elias telling him he was being offered the position on the spot and the incredible amount of information being thrown at him all at once. Maybe this was part of the joke? 

“I think I’m good with the NHS probably? Thanks though,” he replied as he signed his new employment contract.

Elias pushed the second form towards him again, insisting “Really, I cannot recommend more strongly that you invest in some more comprehensive care. And don’t worry, you’ll be receiving a substantial pay increase to reflect your new role.”

Jon, more or less completely numb to the increasingly bizarre afternoon he’d been having, signed the paper without a word. With that, he looked up at Elias for whatever further information he’d hopefully be given.

“Great! I’ll be drafting up your schedule for next week, and I’ll send that along to Rosie in a day or so. I do hope you have a wonderful rest of your afternoon, and welcome to the Institute.”

Jon nodded in response, and only remembered that he should probably speak a few seconds later.

“Ah, yeah. Thank you for this opportunity. I’ll- er- be leaving now?”

Elias quickly popped up from his seat and opened the door for Jon, who slowly shuffled out. He wasn’t even sure he remembered the way back down to the exit, but Elias quickly retreated to his office with a quick “goodbye” and shut the door before Jon could express his confusion. So he retraced his steps the best he could, eventually left the building, and returned home in shock.

Elias, however, was going to celebrate. He pulled his dab pen out of his desk drawer and clicked it to preheat, staring dreamily at his black computer screen as he thought about how much fun he was going to have with Jon. Gertrude had been too smart for her own good and nosy to boot, which was really such a pain. He took a draw from his pen, then exhaled as he retrieved Jon’s resume from his wastebasket. He’d been with Magnus for a number of years now, and didn’t appear to have had any other jobs since starting in uni. And based on the way he so cluelessly followed behind Elias like a lost puppy, he would surely stay obedient. 

He sat at his desk like that for the rest of his work day, ripping his pen and combing through the internet to see if he could find any more information on his newest hire. After all, they were going to become very close soon enough.


	2. Orientation 2: Electric Boogaloo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait! I've been braindead recently because of, you guessed it, my exhausting grocery store job! Hopefully I'll readjust quickly, but right now I've just made the jump from 15-20 hours a week with a 5 minute drive each way to 40+ hours with a 30+ minute drive each way.... But with that I hope to have even more fun retail tidbits to slip into this for your enjoyment/terror
> 
> And I promise next chapter will welcome the Anglerfish and be a lil more rowdy, but I just really wanted to set the stage for the hell that Jon's gonna face alright alright alright alright

Jon mutely returned home, stripped down, and folded into his bed. Realistically speaking, he should probably put on some sort of clothing and eat dinner, but he couldn’t summon the energy to do anything about it. He grabbed one of the gross protein drinks he kept under his nightstand for days like these, and then settled in to watch mind numbing cat videos on Youtube. Something about his bizarre interview had exhausted him to the point of next to no brain function, so he set his alarm while he was still functional enough so that it would wake him up in time for his 9 A.M. shift. He finally dozed off during a video of a Siamese cat yelling at his owner, and had strange dreams he would never be able to remember.

He woke up blearily to the sound of incessant ringing, and only then realized his alarm had been going off for the past 10 minutes. He always set his alarm for the exact amount of time it would take him to get ready, because any extra time would lead to distractions, and then losing track of time, and then clocking in late. But now Jon was ten minutes behind, which meant he was throwing himself into the cheap scratchy fabric they called a “uniform” and running out the door. It probably didn’t matter that much, considering that he was leaving in a week, but he still hurried along and managed to clock in exactly 4 minutes late, which meant it wouldn’t register in the system. Thank god for small miracles, and for forgiving technology.

Rosie and Diana, another service desk employee, stared at him. Belatedly, Jon realized that his hair was still in its haphazard bun from yesterday, and that he’d managed to button his shirt up wrong. 

“Good morning,” Jon tried.

“Everything going alright?” Diana asked in response.

She was always so sweet and concerned about him, and was the one that had originally suggested meal replacement drinks because he was “much too thin, really, you look like you’re going to snap in half.” He was going to miss Diana, wasn’t he?

“I got the job.”

The words came bursting out of his mouth before he could even think over the best way to phrase it. He pulled his bun out and combed his fingers through his hair, untangling all the snarls before quickly putting it in a loose braid. He apparently no longer had control over his career, but he could at least keep his hair in check. But his hair could only serve as a distraction for so long before Rosie started talking, and then he had to face the music.

“Jon, that’s great! I worked under Elias for about a year or so and he was a solid manager, it’ll be great, and if you’ve got any questions for me down the road you can always text me,” Rosie said with a grin that seemed much too large for whatever he was put through yesterday. She then seemed to take Jon’s furrowed eyebrows into consideration as she added “He’s a little eccentric, but it’ll be fine!”

Jon tried his hardest to read her mind to see if she was messing with him or not, but despite what the customers there may have thought, he wasn’t actually able to read minds. So instead, it would seem he’d have to continue doing stupid things like “”expressing his thoughts and feelings.””

“Rosie, he’s more than a little eccentric. He quite literally asked me how many quids tall The Shard is!”

Diana giggled from where she stood to the other side of Rosie, and Jon tried his hardest to glare at her while also not being mean about it. Rosie, however, seemed to be even more amused by Elias’ question than Diana.

“Well, how tall is it?” She teased.

“How in the bloody hell should I know!” He yelled, and then watched as Rosie actually had the nerve to start laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes. 

It was only then that Jon noticed the customer standing in front of lotto that appeared to have been there for more than a few seconds, and his face flushed dark at the embarrassment of a complete stranger watching his tantrum.

“I’ve got counter,” He weakly called to no one but himself as he slid up to help the customer, all the while his shirt remained haphazardly buttoned.

Soon enough, his week was up after a flurry of goodbyes and well wishes and congratulations all smashed together into bizarre combinations. Jon couldn’t quite say that he would miss most of his coworkers, but he’d definitely miss the familiarity of each person and all of their peculiarities. It was easy to remember that Rebecca in produce would always come buy her lunch at approximately 12:30, or that Nick in receiving always wanted to play way too many front pairs for 4-way. But sure enough, he was grabbing all of his various belongings from the random places they'd ended up squirreled away at the desk, and then he was clocking out one last time. 

He didn’t really seem to feel any strong emotions at all the rest of the night, but decided to attempt to sleep earlier than usual in hopes of being well-rested for his super-exciting 100% thrilling new position that he’d be assuming in the morning. When he dreamed that night, he dreamed of thousands of eyes in the sky watching over him, but he didn’t feel any particular fear towards them at all.

But just as surely as the sun rising and people’s inherent need to be shitty to others, Jon was wearily slapping his phone to shut up its incessant yelling that it was time for him to wake up. The process of getting ready was the same monotonous chore as usual, with the exception of him putting his hair up in an neater than usual bun and pulling down his special extra-large travel mug, for extra-large black (tar) coffees. But no matter how much of the sludge he managed to swallow down during his commute, he still felt exhausted as he entered the doors of the Institute, which he supposed was his home sweet home now.

After punching in and affixing his nametag, he found himself greeted by a friendly-looking young woman who towered over him, and her gorgeous poof of hair only helped to add a few more inches. Her name tag read “Sasha,” and Jon supposed this meant she was one of the few permanent employees this department still had. 

“I don’t suppose you’re the new Jon? I’m not sure how much Elias has already filled you in yet but I’m Sasha! I was brought in a couple weeks ago to help with the transition, so Tim and I should hopefully be able to answer any questions you have about the store. Oh, yeah, and Tim’ll be in at 11!” She beamed as she held out his hand. 

Jon sighed, set his ridiculously sized coffee cup on the back counter, and only then shook Sasha’s hand. She seemed so cheerful and full of spirit, and those were always the worst kinds of coworkers.

She was patient with him though, and made sure to show him where everything was located at his new desk with a decent enough explanation that he actually managed to remember where most of the things were. It felt more than a little strange to be at a new desk with a new coworker, but the day flowed along easily enough.

At precisely 11 A.M., Tim showed up. He was weirdly handsome for someone in a shitty retail uniform under harsh fluorescent lights; all sharp cheekbones and lightly defined muscle. It was only then that Jon realized he was now working with two obnoxiously attractive giants, and he voiced this exact sentiment to them both.

“Aw c’mon, you can’t hold it against Sash and I that we're both stunning and you just so happen to be short,” Tim said with an easy grin.

“I am  _ not _ short,” Jon protested.

It was only then that Sasha seemed to tune in to their conversation, and she looked over with an expression that seemed much less innocent than when he’d first met her.

“Oh, are we talking about how petite Jon is? I bet I could toss him the length of the desk,” Sasha stated.

Tim shot Sasha a pair of finger guns and then raised his eyebrows at Jon, as if he was actually honest to god asking if he had permission to pick up Jon, his boss that he’d literally just met, and chuck him a few meters. Jon scanned the horizon for customers, but quickly realized there’d still be another hour until midday numbers were about to close or for lunch rush proper. In other words, he had no hope for escape through customer service.

“No, you cannot toss me anywhere!”

“I mean you are pretty small, what are you, 6 stone? That’d be light work for either of us.”

“I’m sorry, let me correct myself: No, you  _ may _ not toss me anywhere.”

“There we go Jon, I’m sure you know how important it is to choose your words carefully up here,” Sasha chimed in. 

Elias walked up to the still empty desk holding a handful of lotto playcards, but Jon didn’t really get the sense of relief at all. Jon wordlessly took the cards from Elias, and only then realized they were exclusively for three-way and four-way. He started running the cards through the machine as fast as he could (not very fast) and tried to ignore Tim and Sasha eagerly rummaging around for something or Elias’s piercing blue eyes.

“I’m sure you’re aware that we’re still in the process of hiring new employees for you, but I think we found our first good fit for you,” Elias said.

“Mm?” Was all that Jon could manage in response as one of the cards kept refusing to go through the machine.

“We’ve had Martin for about a month now and he’s fantastic, exactly the right temperament for a service desk. He worked at Tesco previously so he already has plenty of experience, so I’ll have you training him starting tomorrow,” Elias said brightly.”

Jon’s eyes scanned over all the cashiers, squinting to make out the names listed at the top of the registers, before eventually coming to what looked like “Martin” on register 6. He was heavier-set with bright, artificially dyed peach pink curls. He seemed to be smiling brightly as he made conversation with the customer, but the items per minute under his name seemed to be listed as an 8.15, a stark contrast from the next lowest cashier there at an 11 something, and Jon watched with horror as he fumbled with a pack of eggs before sending it crashing to the floor.

“I don’t suppose it’s the same Martin as on register 6 right now?” Jon asked, hoping that Martin was just a common enough name and there was a different one that simply wasn't working that day.

“That’d be him!” Elias reassured him as he peered over at the lotto screen, which appeared to be done printing tickets. “That should be £170, correct?”

Jon mutely nodded, trying to prevent the nauseating feeling from overtaking him, and handed Elias back his massive stack of lottery slips. Elias carefully tucked everything back into his beaten-up plastic lottery sleeve and waved farewell to his service desk employees, and then left Jon to stew in his own resignation. This really was going to be his life now, wasn’t it?

He stared at the half-empty shelf of lotto printer paper, and decided that he was going to find out on his own where they were kept in the back.

“I’m going to find the lotto paper in the back, hold down the fort while I’m gone,” Jon instructed.

He took his travel mug of sludge with him as he trekked across the store to the backroom, and Sasha and Tim either had common sense enough to not question him or were just happy for the privacy to do whatever thing would definitely come back to bite him later down the line.


	3. Anglerfish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck editing, all my homies hate editing
> 
> anyways, this chapter is dedicated to every motherfucker that has demanded cigarettes even though we stopped selling them before i was even born

Jon wasn’t ashamed to admit that he spent a solid majority of that shift watching Martin. The ways that he fumbled with items, punctured packaging, bagged terribly, and on one occasion, actually managed to spill a hot soup _into_ the register’s scale, which took at least 18 minutes to clean out (or exactly 18 minutes, it’s not like Jon was counting or anything.) But the most infuriating thing was how despite that Martin was so lively and engaged with his customers, at a level that even managed to net him two separate documented customer compliments in his internal folder on that day alone. He was so absolutely beyond incompetent at his job, but here he was being complimented and promoted and left to Jon to deal with. 

Okay so yeah, maybe Jon was a little infuriated. But every time he angrily stared at Martin, the customers still seemed to be happy with Martin’s performance. The point of a service desk wasn’t to befriend the customers, it was to placate people just enough to prevent them from actually going out into the world and committing murder, whether it be giving into a middle-aged woman’s complaints or giving into a gambling addict’s hunger. 

Someone as nice and forgiving as Martin seemed to be would be eaten alive by the countless customers waiting to blame him personally for anything they found unsatisfactory. He would be emotionally destroyed, and then quickly transfer back before he was traumatized for life.

For the most part, Tim and Sasha seemed to let him stew for the rest of his shift. They would occasionally call to him to ask him a certain management question or to point out where something might be located, but never said a single word about the way he was staring down Martin. 

Even after Jon had clocked out and gone home, Martin still occupied his brain. How on Earth could he train someone to be an effective employee when they were as inept as Martin was, even when it came to the most basic skills? It was common sense to put canned goods in a separate bag from a carton of eggs, for Christ’s sake. Jon could teach someone the intricacies of the position without any problems, but it was impossible to teach common sense! He briefly mulled over the idea of texting Rosie because she _had_ offered her advice up, but Jon ultimately decided that she’d cause more problems than solutions

Jon grabbed the couch pillow out from under his head, screamed into it until he was gasping for air, then threw it to the opposite side of the couch. It felt like some sort of test for Jon, except there was clearly no good solution where everything goes well. So Jon flung his limbs off the couch one by one, hoping that he had some takeout leftovers in his fridge that were edible enough. 

When he fell asleep later that night, the eyes were back in the sky but seemed to have multiplied. Jon, hazy and stumbling through his dream, stared back up at them until he woke up with a start to the familiar sound of his alarm.

Jon sat up in bed to orient himself, then quickly remembered that it would be just him and Martin for most of the morning until reinforcements (Sasha) came in at 11:30. What if he suffocated himself with his pillow, or even just called in sick? Leave Martin to be trained by someone else.

It was a nice thought, but Jon had literally just started his position and rather wanted to keep it, so he went through the repetitive motions of getting ready and commuting to work. 

Everything would be fine, he reassured himself. Martin would prove to be just as incompetent, Jon would tell Elias that Martin wasn’t a good fit after all, and then Jon could watch all the cashiers from the safety of the desk and select a few that seemed to be a good fit. He could make it through one singular frustrating day.

Jon still made sure to once more fill his extra-large coffee cup to the brim though, just on the off chance that he would need the extra dose of caffeine when dealing with martin. 

It was easy enough to open up the desk after Sasha gave him the rundown of where everything was, and Jon thanked whichever corporate shitlord that had insisted on maintaining consistency across stores. Even with how mind numbingly tired Jon was, he still set up all of the tills for the day and checked last night’s numbers with ease.

Martin was slated to come in 30 minutes after Jon, which meant that Jon had no respite between setting up and Martin, who infuriatingly even clocked in 5 minutes early and seemed very alert and chipper. Even worse, he _also_ seemed to be taller than Jon.

“Good morning Jon! You’re new too, right? Well I’m Martin, and I was only hired about a week ago but Elias said they were hiring a bunch of new people up here so I guess here I am.”

Jon called upon every ounce of self control to not roll his eyes as Martin moved past him to set down his mug next to Jon’s. As Martin walked by, the scent of something minty wafted off of his mug. God, he was really this peppy in the morning off of tea alone?

“Good morning, Martin. I am in fact new to this store, but not to Magnus. Now, you worked at Tesco before this?” Jon questioned.

For the first time that morning, Martin seemed uneasy. It was subtle, but Jon had spent enough time people-watching over the years that he could recognize a sudden mood switch. Martin’s eyes flicked downwards, and his shoulders just barely slumped forward. Just as soon as it happened, it was gone and then Martin was beaming down at Jon. 

“Yup, I spent about a year at Tesco! It was fine, but I just felt like this was a better fit for me, y’know?”

Jon sighed and nodded, even though he resented the fact that he still worked for Magnus on a daily basis and wished he was just about anywhere else. 

“Fair enough. Now, because you already know how to operate the register, we’ll be focusing on refunds today.”

Jon retrieved the refund guidebook from one of the back drawers and handed it to Martin. It was tattered and old, with the irrelevant information scribbled out with black Sharpie, but it was enough to have the different policies regarding types of refunds and how money could be refunded. 

“This is your Bible for today. Read it, then read it again until it’s imprinted in your mind, then twice more for good measure. You’ll just be shadowing me for refunds the first half of today, and then I’ll observe you for the second half. Depending on today, you’ll either move on to learning lottery tomorrow, or you’ll be _continuing_ to understand refunds,” Jon said, taking care to inflect his tone on the latter option to make it clear that it would be considered a failure if Martin didn’t begin to pick up refunds today.

Martin stood off to the side and appeared to be taking down notes in a small notebook as he read, and then immediately returned to Jon’s side the second he heard the word “return.” It was an old woman with a few cans of soup, and she claimed that her husband didn’t like them. But Martin kept a straight face throughout the whole transaction, even when the woman insisted that they should take the soup off the shelves because it was that bad. 

It was a little before 11:30 when Jon started to realize that this store was fairly…. Unique. Martin had been asking Jon some rather self-explanatory questions about refunds when a voice came from so close to the desk that it startled them both, because they should have seen someone approach before hearing them.

“Can I have a cigarette?”

The first details that jumped out to Jon were that the customer was extremely tall, and that they were dressed in all black. They wore an oversized black hat with a wide brim all the way around, large black sunglasses, and a long black trench coat. The voice sounded deep, but it was hard to discern any actual expressions of gender. Their skin looked deathly pale, almost waxy, and they slowly swayed back and forth like they’d been drinking since 5 A.M.

Jon immediately punched in the number for security so that he could just hit the dial button if anything happened, and then stepped forward before Martin did anything stupid.

“Sir, the company stopped selling cigarettes over a decade ago,” Jon explained neutrally.

“Can I have a cigarette?” The customer asked again, still swaying.

“We do not sell cigarettes. Try the corner shop a block east.”

The customer kept swaying, but paused for a moment before once more asking.

“Can I have a cigarette?”

“If you’d like, I think-” Martin started before immediately getting cut off by Jon, who had pushed his arm out in front of Martin as he hit “dial.”

Jon held the phone up to his ear, and as he did so the customer stopped swaying and turned towards the exit, before stiffly walking off to presumably leave. Martin stared directly at Jon with an expression that could only be described as “pathetically sad kicked puppy”, which he ignored as he recounted the exchange to security so that they could review footage. As he finished up the explanation and hung up, Sasha finally walked up.

“Great, hi Sasha, I’m actually going to have you go down to security to have them give you information about whatever weirdo just came up here,” Jon said.

Sasha stared at Jon, then over at Martin, who still looked absolutely pitiful and confused.

“Uhhhh okay?” Sasha replied as she exited the desk and walked in the direction of security’s office.”

Martin continued to gape at Jon as if something about that interaction had been world-changing. Jon got sick of the way Martin seemed incapable of responding to reality, and turned to the back of the desk to organize the department binder.

“Who was that…” Martin eventually managed.

Jon shrugged casually, and then glanced down towards where Sasha had disappeared to. He still wasn't entirely sure the customer had even left the store, but it seemed unlikely they'd come back.

“No clue. They simply appeared intoxicated, so I believe it was safe to assume that nothing god would be coming from the interaction.” 

This basic common sense seemed to surprise Martin, and if it weren’t for Sasha’s reappearance, Jon would be imagining all of the mistakes that Martin’s naivete would lead to. 

“Jon, who is this and why do we have a huge sketched out drawing of him? Furthermore, why did you kick him out before I even got to talk to him?” Sasha asked.

Jon’s demeanor drastically changed between interacting with Martin and Sasha, and he found himself jokingly rolling his eyes back at Sasha’s complaining.

“He left of his own volition. What did security say?”

Sasha held her minuscule sticky note scribbles up close to her eyes, and slowly read off what she could make out.

“‘Cigarette Man’ has done this at least six times over the past few years, but only to other customers up until now. He was known to get violent based on the answer he got though, so he was trespassed a while back,” Sasha paused, and then continued, “Also, it appears security has never successfully gotten the CCTV to record them.”

“Thank you, Sasha,” Jon said before groaning in frustration.

If he had footage, at least he could have a clear reference image out of the customer to warn anyone and everyone else that works behind the desk to not interact with that customer. As it stands though, Jon drafts up emails to clarify the policy with regards to customers that seem intoxicated, and tries not to wonder how the ‘Cigarette Man” got violent or what the wrong answers were. Martin was just a moron, that was all.

Speaking of Martin, Jon looked out of the corner of his eye and watched as Martin bounced hypothetical situations off of Sasha, and he organized their pens all the while. He had yet to do anything wrong, aside from trying to reason with a clearly unreasonable customer, so Jon had to keep an eye out for any issues that he could bring up with Elias down the road.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading, and if you have any ideas for how your favorite episode can become a metaphor for the horrors that minimum wage workers have to face then feel free to drop it (and any other thoughts you have!) down in the comments below, or hmu @haltsunemiku on tumblr 💕


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